“If you’re pregnant, and you’re thinking about traveling to a place were Zika is spreading, please don’t”.
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However, Zika probably will not spread explosively across the United States, because the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry the virus only live in very warm areas. Health officials there reported that a patient had been infected through having sex with someone who had recently returned from Venezuela, one of the countries with a Zika outbreak. After infection, Zika virus might persist in semen when it is no longer detectable in blood. However, 80 percent of those who contract the virus don’t show symptoms, according to the Health Advisory from West Virginia’s Bureau for Public Health.
Without a doubt, the possibility that birth defects will occur from a mosquito bite is alarming, especially since Texans travel globally and our state is an global transit center. When symptoms do appear, they usually are in the form of a mild fever, rash and eye redness.
Going back to 2013, there have only been six confirmed cases in California, and they were all in people who contracted the virus while traveling overseas.
“We know that four out of five people with Zika will have no symptoms”, Frieden said in the briefing. Researchers recommend pregnant women take precautions to avoid kissing people or sharing cutlery or drinks.
USA health officials issued guidelines Friday to prevent the sexual transmission of the Zika virus, telling men who have been to outbreak areas to use condoms during sex with pregnant women.
She said her collaborators had been studying Zika in South-East Asia but a new research grant proposal would dramatically improve the way health officials rapidly detect the virus in mosquito populations in Australia by looking for all mosquito viruses in one test rather than separate tests.
“I think we need to be careful that don’t we jump to any conclusions about transmissibility”, Anthony Fauci, who leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition. The American Association of Blood Banks and Red Cross are asking people not to donate blood within 28 days of traveling to affected areas.
Though presence of the Zika virus has been identified in 17 cases of babies with microcephaly, as the condition is known, there is no solid proof that the virus causes it. Babies with microcephaly have abnormally small heads and often have underdeveloped brains.
Brazil reports more than 4,000 microcephaly cases since October.
Although mosquitoes are still believed to be the primary means by which Zika is spread and prevention is paramount to evade infection, the CDC told a press conference that it was looking curtail sexual transmission.
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There is increasing evidence to suggest that the Zika virus can be passed from mother to her foetus during pregnancy causing microcephaly.
